


Why do I regret what I won’t change?

by Wesblorb



Series: Waking Up In Your Bed [1]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Catra (She-Ra) Needs a Hug, Dreams, F/F, Nightmares, Pining, Post-Season/Series 03, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:08:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27363247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wesblorb/pseuds/Wesblorb
Summary: Catra is exhausted and she needs time to rest, time to heal. When an incredibly realistic dream allows her the chance by letting her be by Adora’s side again, will it give her what she needs to process her feelings and emerge stronger, or will it only dig up emotions she’d worked so hard to bury and leave them exposed to harm once again?
Relationships: Adora & Catra (She-Ra)
Series: Waking Up In Your Bed [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2064651
Kudos: 7





	Why do I regret what I won’t change?

As another day in the Horde had come to a close, the feline second in command stumbled from the hallways into her personal barracks after another day of success. Another territory had been captured, another battle won, another this, another that, always another something. It never seemed to end and it sucked everything out of a commander who was sure she’d run out of all she had to give ages ago, at least until the world found a way to take even more.

Catra was tired, she always was nowadays. It was hard for her to remember a time where she wasn’t physically or mentally drained. Almost immediately she regretted thinking that because she had a pretty good idea of when that time was, and why it was like that.

**_Adora_ **

_Great, I have to think about THIS again._

Thinking about Adora was always a mixed bag for Catra; despite being her biggest source of comfort for most of her life, she was now the thing which caused her life to spiral into complete disarray. How was one supposed to react to someone ruining their life, but only having a life good enough to fall to such a grand ruin because they were in it in the first place?

She hated thinking about it, and she hated that Adora would be the last thing on her mind before her exhaustion forcefully carried her into sleep as she laid on the hard unforgiving floor of the Fright Zone..  
  


* * *

...that was until she felt a much softer surface sink a bit lower beneath her.

Catra’s eyes snapped open to reveal she’d been lying in an actual bed in an overly pink and overly soft room. Completely prissed out floor to ceiling, waterfall, chandeliers, the whole package. The ribbon on that package came when she looked down to find the one who had once left her, now lying still right beside her.

“W-w-what’s happening?! Why am I here?! How did-“

Most days, Adora would’ve responded with the exact same surprise and stupor once she heard someone else’s voice in her room. Tonight, however, she was exhausted. She had been going on missions for days without sleep, so even though she was awake, she was running solely on reserves and about 4 hours of sleep which she’d manage to strategically take throughout the week. She heard Catra screaming and she knew it was night time, in the Horde that usually meant she was woken by a nightmare. She had consoled her so many times that even now, long after the days where they slept in the same bunk, she was still able to respond to her cries almost autonomously. It was like a reflex that never left her 

“It’s just a dream Catra,” she grumbled out.

”A...dream?” Of course, that explained it perfectly. “J-just a dream?”

“Mhm,” Adora tiredly confirmed.

A dream, that’s all it was, just a dream. It didn’t matter that it felt real, it didn’t matter that the two were enemies now, it didn’t matter that Adora absolutely couldn’t know her true feelings. If none of it was real, was it so wrong to just let things happen? Feeling her nerves fall but not fully relax, she began to lie back down next to Adora.

“If its just a dream, then there’s nothing wrong with this?” She said meekly, moving her arms around Adora’s waist and pressing her face into her back. She felt stupid asking a question to a figment of her imagination, but even as a dream it felt too good to be true. She had to check.

“Mhm,” Adora once again responded acting solely on instinctual impulse, too worn out to process anything going on.

Catra still couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe that even if just a dream, she could experience the warmth she thought had exited her life long ago. She squeezed her arms around Adora tighter, not wanting to let her get away. At the same time, if only because she thought it was a dream, she felt as if Adora was fragile, and if she held on too hard the dream would break and she’d end up in her bed alone again. She couldn’t stand the thought of it, it wasn’t fair. She did everything she could to push Adora out of her mind only for her to appear in this incredibly lucid dream while she was at her weakest. How was she supposed to continue on like this? How could she stand to wake up and have none of it be real?

She wanted to tell her. Even if it was a dream, she didn’t want her to leave

She couldn’t bring herself to say it even if it was a dream, because admitting to her own imagination would still mean admitting it to herself. It was easier to pretend it didn’t exist then to acknowledge her problems, only to make the same decisions that would end up hurting herself regardless. That didn’t stop her from thinking about it though, and it didn’t stop her from mentally begging Adora not to leave again.

_I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll stop just please, stay here. Just be here when I wake up and I’ll fix everything somehow!_

She felt the tears begin to roll off her cheeks and onto the back of Adora’s shirt as her arms tightened around Adora's waist. The war didn’t matter, the Horde didn’t matter, Adora leaving her didn’t matter. She’d done nothing but hate everything around her for years and it had only submerged her further in misery. She didn’t want to go back to that, she wanted to latch on to the sudden re-emergence of the one thing she loved and never let go again .

The only thing that mattered was that the warmth she thought she’d lost for good was back with her, if just for a brief moment. She was fine with it at first, but she feared she’d be broken once the moment ended. The idea of being there with her and not fighting but simply _being_ with her, only to awake the next day seemed too cruel. She knew how she really felt, but she refused to even give those feelings the time of day knowing they’d be impossible now. How was she supposed to fight her after having been with her like this? After having all those feelings stirred back up like dust in an old room of her heart she’d previously had boarded up for the longest time.

She’d let herself be weak only once since Adora left, and it came back to gnaw on any fragile part of herself that was left. Letting herself trust Shadow Weaver and being betrayed in return was the breaking point for her. She thought that she’d been nothing but tough her whole life, surely letting her guard down ONCE wasn’t enough for the universe to punish her. But it was, and she faced consequences for it.

Yet here she was, letting her tough persona obscure for just a moment so that she could lie in a bed with Adora one more time. So she could feel the warmth that radiated off her strong body just by being herself, and so she could cling to her like a frightened child in hopes she would fix all her problems once she saw Catra was scared.

But not this time, she wasn’t a child anymore, truth be told she wasn’t allowed to be much of a child even when she was one. She would’ve been able to cope with that, she knew she was strong enough to fight her own battles now...but she wanted Adora to stay with her anyway. Not as her protector or her enemy, it didn’t even have to be as her lover. She just wanted her to stay so the moment could drag on a little bit longer.

So she soaked up as much of Adora’s presence as she could. She ran her hands down the girl’s abdomen, feeling the bruises and scars she got from battle and from training, no doubt some of which she gave Adora herself. She listened to the way she breathed somewhat ruggedly and how she would whine out of her nose ever so slightly when her snore reached its peak. She took in her scent of what could only be called a mix of flowers and hard work.

She missed these little things, the things she’d forgotten and which she couldn’t experience because she was always an arms-length away. She just wanted to stay with her forever, but she couldn’t. She knew it wasn’t real, that it could be gone at a moment notice. She had to try though. Even if it was hopeless she had to try to hold on to the one thing she cared about.

It was weak and quiet, almost embarrassingly so. But she let out a whisper, one that contained her last plea to Adora for a return to normalcy, as well as the only feelings she could gather the courage to convey.

“Please, don’t leave me again. Just stay with me, even if you don’t love me the way I love you.”  
  


* * *

  
She felt her arms snap through the empty space which had just been filled by the women she loved. Her hands now on her shoulders, she began to feel how cold she felt now back in the heartless clutches of the Horde. 

What was normal felt just the slightest bit scarier now that she’d gotten a taste of what an actual good night's sleep was like, and the wound of her loneliness had been reopened. Instead of the little things about Adora, she was now taking attention to her own body and the things she’d ignored because she’d been used them. The way she was always slightly shivering, the way her breaths were vaguely uneven and erratic, the way her sweat from unending shifts had begun to mat her fur to her skin. 

She’d done it again, she’d let her guard down for only a moment and she was all the more hurt for it. She didn’t know if she’d begun crying while asleep or if it was once she woke up, but it felt like there was no disconnect from the dream. She felt as though the tears started when she wrapped her arms around Adora, and they carried over seamlessly from the dream. She didn’t even want to allow herself the moment to grieve what was already gone, she knew the longer she spent on the ground the harder it would be when she eventually had to get up.

She couldn’t just go out and put back on the facade of an unshakable leader with tears streaming down her face and her heart fixated on her damnably soft and sentimental feelings for the one she should be trying to destroy. For this reason only, she allowed herself that one moment in which she could be permitted to feel, even if it felt awful.

~~~

“Catra!” Adora called, her brain now able to process what transpired after rebooting from a night of sleep.

She was in a complete frenzy trying to figure out what was going on. Was she in danger? Was Catra in danger? Did Catra need her help? The questions just flowed in nonstop. One thing was for certain though, and the tears she felt still wet on her back were proof of it. Catra was with her last night, and she wasn’t ok.

Adora could never bring herself to hate her once closest friend, and unlike Catra, she didn’t even try. She sometimes wished she could lie to herself like that though, so she could pretend like it didn’t matter. So she could be happy the enemy commander was slipping, instead of wrapping her arms around herself tight, letting her fingers prod at the spots were Catra’s hands had grabbed her. She felt it, she knew it was real and she refused to entertain the idea of it being anything else, even if it would help to think it was all fake and didn’t matter.

The only part that she felt she likely imagined was the words she heard Catra say before she finally fell asleep.

_I hurt her. I did what I had to but that doesn’t change that I still did it._

She felt herself begin to shake. She’d liked to think in the past that as rocky as her mind could be, her body was sturdy enough to withstand any pain or pressure. Unfortunately, living beings weren’t quite so simple and her body could still fail her when she needed to be strong emotionally.

_I wanted to keep my promise, but how could you make me choose like that!?_

Adora wanted to be angry, she wanted to be able to be mad at Catra for **making** her choose the rebellion over her. But she knew that regardless of what happened, it was still her choice. She could’ve ignored what she saw at Thaymore and continued with the only life she’d known, but she didn’t. She didn’t regret her choice, but she knew that because it was her decision and her decision alone, she had no right to complain about the consequences.

_Why are you treating it like it’s my fault? I’m not the one who made you like this!_

She couldn’t just make an imaginary enemy out of the whole world like Catra had. She cared about others, and she hated it when they had to suffer because of her. She hated it enough that she’d suffer in return if it meant keeping others happy. She hated how much the ultimatum she’d be given had preyed on this weakness of hers. The options she’d been presented with left her no chance of a result she could be happy with. She had to either let a great number of people suffer at her own hands, or betray her comrades and hurt the person closest to her in the most deeply personal way possible. She didn’t care how much weight she had to put on herself as She-Ra to make things better, she’d do it in a heartbeat. But she couldn’t avoid making a choice by taking more punishment onto herself; the only option was to put that weight onto others.

_I didn’t want this, I didn’t want any of this._

She knew somewhere that it wasn’t her fault, that Catra too was responsible for her own decisions. But It didn’t make it any easier to hurt her for the sake of doing the right thing.

_I wanted to keep being with you._

She didn’t allow her personal feelings to get in the way of what needed to be done, but it wasn’t as if she could stop herself from feeling altogether. She missed Catra. She missed having someone who could drag her out of her foggy headspace and back into the real world. It pained her so much that Catra didn’t think she valued what they had. It meant everything to her. She wanted to go back, if only just to that brief moment the night before. She wanted so badly to fix things by responding with how she felt now to the words Catra spoke then.

( **“Just stay with me, even if you don’t love me the way I love you.”** )

”But I do love you...I never stopped.”

**Author's Note:**

> Not really sure why I wrote this, but if you’re feeling sad and just want Catradora fluff you can check out my other fic [ It’s scary, but I have you to help me through it ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25160851/chapters/60970048). It’s postwar and still has them working through some stuff but they’re together and a good amount of it is just fluff. Also not sure how many more works I’ll make in this series but I have ideas for Lumity, Jesslake, and a few others.


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